It's interesting that Western red states like Arizona, Montana, and Alaska are still not very religious, while places like Illinois and Maryland are. I think this leads to the possibility of the Great East-West Divide of the 2030s-2050s in American politics.
I could see a scenario where Georgia and North Carolina are actually Safe R at mid-century, while Arizona has become Safe D and Alaska Likely D.
I doubt it, religion everywhere is on the decline, especially with the Millennial generation. By 2030 it's bound to be a much less impactful statistic politically.
^This
The reason states like Maryland still register as average religiosity is due to their heavy black population. The White population in Maryland more closely hews to New England Whites in terms of religiosity indicators than the Whites in states of the South or even the Midwest. Minorities and Hispanics are far more religiously inclined than educated Whites as a whole, but unlike Evangelicals and other White social conservatives, it's not the defining feature of their political beliefs.
Did you literally just say a sentence where you implied there was a dichotomy between being socially conservative and educated?
No, I was refuting ER's thoughts about how religiosity alone will necessarily indicate future political leanings of states. Educated Whites
on balance are less socially conservative than minorities, but at the same time, minorities that are socially conservative don't actively incorporate that social conservatism into their politics the same way high religiosity Whites do. Hence why a state like Maryland won't magically become Republican leaning just because its religiosity is close to the national average, because Blacks and immigrants compose the majority of its high religiosity population. The levels of social conservatism and religiosity among Maryland Whites more closely resembles the low levels of New England Whites than Whites in the Midwest or South.
And there is an irrefutable body of evidence indicating that irrelogisty among Whites is growing in tandem with with higher levels of education among Whites. College-educated Whites are becoming more secular over time than they were previously, and by extension less socially conservative. That doesn't mean there aren't socially conservative, high religiosity, college educated Whites, but it does mean they are constituting shrinking portions of the total college educated White population. Maryland is a great example of this, since it has one of the most highly educated White populations in the country, and they are emblematic of the trend of decreasing religiosity and social conservatism among college educated Whites.
